Editor’s note: The Denverite staff, like most of the city, was snowed in Thursday.
As the inches piled up, I reached out to Kyle and Rebecca, from the warmth and comfort of my home office, and asked them to put on their boots, bundle up and head out to see how our neighbors in the city were faring.
After all, this seemed like a big deal, right? School closures, travel delays and other cancellations were announced left and right all day. Folks had to be freaking out, right?
Here’s what they heard from other Denverites. - Obed
Rebecca here. When we’re talking snow, it’s important to know that the only way in and out of my apartment is up two flights of steep, outdoor stairs. I have faced snow on the steps before, but when Obed told me I had to leave my apartment and cover the storm I found for the first time that the snow piled so high it turned my staircase into a slide.
So I did what every responsible adult would do: I put on my snowsuit, grabbed a cardboard box and tried to slide down what I am unofficially calling Denver’s steepest sledding hill.
It did not go well. I managed to avoid re-injuring any limbs, but I reached speeds only fit for ski slopes, used language not fit to print and earned myself some bruises.
Safely on the ground, I headed toward City Park to see how other Denverites were dealing with the snow.
On Adams Street, Bryan Wiggins was out shoveling not just his house but the whole block.
“Not everyone is easily able to do it, and a lot of other places here are small apartment buildings, it's no one person's responsibility, so it ends up not happening,” he said after catching his breath. “So just kind of a public safety thing. That's what I was primed to do today, is get out here and shovel snow.”
In City Park, Alexa Temme and Adam Illig were building a human-sized snow bear. Patience, they said, was the key to high-quality snowman building.
“The snow is perfect for making this incredible snow bear,” Temme said. “Getting the nose-rock in was quite a feat.”
Snow-shoeing along the lake were Katharine Brenton, Nicole Malow and their dog Poppy. Brenton and Malow grew up in Denver and went to Manual High School. They insisted that back in their day, weather like this would not have called for a snow day.
“I think Denver's gone a little soft is what I'm trying to say,” Brenton said.
Across town, in Northeast Park Hill, Kyle took a trip to a liquor store.
Kyle here. Meanwhile, I had been cozied up in my basement typing away for most of the morning, while everybody else in my family enjoyed a snow day. I finally took a break and had just sunk my teeth into a gargantuan turkey club when Obed told me to go find out what people were doing.
I finished chewing, put on my long johns, my lumberjack shirt, my winter coat and boots and headed to the door.
My partner and my kid were making a snow volcano outside with a ball track that had malfunctioned and came in grumbling just as I was getting ready to go out. For a moment, I considered interviewing them, and then I thought, “I’m pretty sure Obed would think I’m lazy and I like my job,” so I walked past them into the vast empty slush-scape of Northeast Park Hill.
Just before the door closed, my partner warned me: “You might be overdressed.” I should have listened. I started walking through the slush. I was sweating before I made it to the end of the block.
Several blocks later, I realized nobody was out and about in my immediate vicinity, so I went where I have stumbled to on many blizzardy nights: Vinny’s Liquors.
I explained to the salesman, Prince Gill, that I was not just a longtime customer, I was also a journalist. I asked him how the snow was affecting business.
He said on Wednesday night, as the city shut down and newscasters warned Denverites about the coming snowstorm, the liquor store was packed with people. They bought cognac, brandy, Irish cream, whiskey and red wine.
“People like to stay warm,” Gill said. “They try to drink Irish liquor, like some Irish whiskey. They try to make those hot chocolates and stuff like that.”
On Thursday morning, Gill left the house early to get to work. He had a little trouble navigating side streets, but once he got to the highway, it was a straight shot.
With temperatures hovering just over freezing, snow still falling and the streets and sidewalks flooded with standing water, on Thursday afternoon, most regulars were staying home.
“I think most of the people called it a day off, and they’re just staying home, probably getting drunk,” he said.
One man who was out and about was Fontaine Swann, who’s lived in Denver since the late 1970s.
He dropped by Vinny’s after a long day at work and was loving the snowy day.
“I remember when the first snow hit, it used to be around Halloween, it wouldn't melt until April,” Swann said. “This here, it’s nothing.”
The biggest problem he sees with this snow is that there are a lot of drivers on the streets who don’t know what they’re doing and put everybody at risk.
“But this is beautiful,” he said. “It feels clean. It's crisp and fresh. What can you complain about that? You’ve got to work? You work! So other than that, there ain’t nothing else to say bad.”
All the snow fear-mongering on the news was nothing more than an overblown hustle, as Swann saw it.
“Everybody’s like, ‘I’m going to get groceries next weekend,’” he said. Then the newscasters warn about the storm and make people panic, and they rush out to shop. “The grocery stores, they mark [prices] up. They know you're on your way.”
Sure, his car was falling apart under the weight of the snow. And drivers weren’t exactly safe. But at the end of the day, he was just enjoying what nature threw at him.
“If you don't like the weather in Colorado, leave,” Swann said. “It’ll change in five minutes anyway.”
I walked one door down, nearly impaling my head on a snowy branch, and planned to go into Dandy Lion Coffee for a lavender latte and interviews.
But I was too late.
Emilee Gendel and Sarah Daniels, workers at Dandy Lion Coffee, taped a sign to the door — “sorry, we closed early today! ❤️ love you, see you tomorrow” — bundled up, locked the building, and headed into the slush.
Daniels drove to work this morning from Reunion.
“It was a fine drive,” she said. “It was a slushy drive, but not bad.”
Gendel stomped through the slush from her house to Dandy Lion in the morning and was getting ready to stomp back through slightly deeper puddles.
Their day had been slow. The normally buzzing coffee shop and plant store had around 20 people crawl in all day long — the same amount that’s usually there at any given time.
The few people who showed, sipped coffee, read books, and chatted.
“I love being here today, in the snow,” Gendel said. “It's just very cozy.”
“A cozy cafe,” said Daniels. “Yeah, you can't ask for more than that.”
All the doomsday predictions about the weather rang false to the Dandy Lion crew. The main reason they closed early was that their regular customers were holed up at home.
As they looked at the weather, they were basically bored by what they saw. It was pretty, sure. But snowmageddon?
“It’s coming down, but it looks normal,” said Gendel. “I feel like the weather people were exaggerating once again.”
